Traitor
**Janus**
““WHAT?!””
Joel and I exclaim simultaneously. But unlike us, Titus seemed determined to remain silent. After a full minute of just Titus saying nothing and staring at his lost leg, Joel couldn’t hold back anymore and demanded,
“Come on, you can’t just shut up after saying something like that. You have to tell us.”
Throughout this quest, Joel has started to agree with me more and more. I join his demand,
“We have to know even if it is hard to say.”
Titus was just looking up at the ceiling, and yet it looked like he was looking at something else far in the distance. Finally, he broke his silence, his voice choking as he answered,
“They had shot down all our carrier pigeons, so we had to sally out if we wanted to get help. We were just about to break through the siege, and everything was going well, until… Sigh, Rodrick cut my left leg off.” Titus closed his eyes, and two streaks of tears flowed down his chin.
I have never seen him cry before. It seems Sir Rodrick’s betrayal has hit him harder than even losing his leg. Titus looked back down again, his eyes now looking right ahead, he continued answering,
“He went for the armor’s weak spot in my knee joint. I was still able to knock him out when I turned around and hit him with the flat side of my sword, though. Hehe, guess he didn’t expect that.” Titus gave a light chuckle and swept his tears away with a handkerchief with the initials MC stitched onto it. He put it back into his pocket, but not without giving it a look and brushing over the neatly stitched initials with his thumb. “But we had to retreat afterward. With my leg gone and with the sudden act of treason, we had no desire to keep fighting.”
“But what happened to your leg after it was cut off? Why didn’t you bring it with you?”
“They tried, but I refused.”
““What? Why?””
“I didn’t want my leg back if it would just end up like Finn’s arm. This new priest is just awful. A far cry from master Roland. And there was no way my leg would stay fresh until I met Master Roland again. And I didn’t want them to get hurt trying to get it back. Our retreat was already way too risky. One wrong move and someone would have died.”
That made sense, and if the stump heals enough, he would even be able to use a prosthetic. But thankfully, we have a way better option.
“What are you two grinning about? There is nothing funny about all this.”
“Well, maybe not for all of this, but you don’t have to worry about your leg.”
Titus raised an eyebrow.
“We will just have to grow you a new one.”
Titus stared at Joel in absolute disbelief. Before standing up on his sole leg, he balanced himself with one hand on the chair’s back. The seven and a half foot Giant now staring down at Joel, raising his fist threateningly, accompanied by a low and deep voice,
“It seems I have to teach you some manners. Making jokes at a time like this. You have already forgotten the feeling of my fist.”
I threw myself between Titus and Joel, who looked like a lamb about to be slaughtered.
“He isn’t joking I swear.”
Titus’s fist retracts slightly. “Really?”
“He is speaking the truth; there really is someone at Rosedorn right now who can regrow limbs. Her name is Ruby.”
**Thirty minutes later**
“So, Master Roland is dead, and our whole escort mission has been pointless because you already have a healer who is even more talented than the pope?”
When he says it like that, it sounds well… right, I guess, it’s just...
“Kind of, but…”
Titus sat back down, covered his face with his left hand, and raised his right hand as a signal for me to stop talking.
“I know that we couldn’t have known that this Ruby person would arrive. I… I’m just exhausted.”
An awkward silence permeated the room.
“We ehm, will take our leave.”
“Hey, what?” I grab Joel by his collar and drag him through the door. “Let go, you stupid…”
But Joel suddenly stopped complaining right after we left Titus’s Room. I turned around, confused that Joel, of all people, would stop complaining towards me. And see the reason for his silence. The embodiment of all things considered cute stood behind us. A melodious but somehow gratingly shrill voice reaches our eardrums.
“JANUS<3!”
Out of instinct, I whisper in horror,
“Oh, no, not her.”
Thankfully, it seemed like she did not hear what I just said. But Joel, as if on cue, wrangles out of my grip and darts out of the Baron’s estate as fast as humanly possible. Stay here, you damn traitor. Don’t leave me with her. I turn around again, but before I can join Joel in his escape, slender arms embrace my waist from behind. I look beneath my left arm down onto my assailant, sixteen-year-old Gertrude Lunae, the King’s niece and Daughter of Duke Siegfried Lunae.
“Hello Gertru…” A sudden sense of danger runs through my entire body, “Ehm, I mean hello Trudy.”
“Finally, we meet again. Have you gotten my letters? How have you been? Have you become stronger and more handsome? What are you doing here?” She makes an over-dramatic expression of genuine...GENUINE surprise” Gasp! Did you want to visit me?!”
Fuck why is she here?